According to the Justice Department, “There is no allegation
in this suit that Coinbase has engaged in any wrongdoing in
connection with its virtual currency exchange business. Rather,
the IRS uses John Doe summonses to obtain information about
possible violations of internal revenue laws by individuals whose
identities are unknown.”
The summons, called a “John Doe summons,” does not name specific
individuals, but a class of taxpayers. The IRS argued that
because of tax evasion cases involving two Coinbase customers and
Bitcoin’s “relatively high level of anonymity,” there is a
“reasonable basis” for concern that the other Coinbase customers
may be evading taxes as well, according to an earlier article in The New York
Times.
Coinbase had about 3 million customers at the end of 2015. The
New York Times article reported the IRS is “interested in going
after both large tax evaders as well as small-time Bitcoin users
who might not be recording their virtual currency transactions
properly for tax purposes.”
It may be torn down completely as a result of a summons
authorized Wednesday by a federal judge.
The IRS has said that while Coinbase provides customers with gain
and loss statements for each transaction, but it has no means of
knowing if anonymous customers are filing related tax information
in compliance with the law.
The summons is characterized as “the largest single attempt to
identify tax evaders using virtual currency to
date,” reports Gizmodo.
The Internal Revenue Service is seeking customer identity and
2014 to 2015 transaction records from Coinbase, the largest
Bitcoin exchange in the U.S.
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Coinbase has characterized the IRS inquiries as a “very, very
broad fishing expedition,” and said it will fight the summons.
The New York Times quoted IRS Agent David
Utzke saying, “The risk/reward ratio for a taxpayer in
the virtual currency environment is extremely low, and the
likelihood of underreporting is significant. The characteristics
of virtual currencies could enable them to replace traditional
abusive tax arrangements as the preferred method for tax
evaders.”
Bitcoin’s veil of privacy for 3 million Coinbase customers has
been threatened.
For Coinbase customers, the risk of not reporting Bitcoin trades
properly may be about to increase dramatically.
Read the original article on Digital Trends. Copyright 2016. Follow Digital Trends on Twitter.
Gizmodo noted the IRS declared in 2014 that, as property, virtual
currencies such as Bitcoin are subject to taxes on profits from
sales as taxable income.